Martin Rundkvist's blog for 2006. Archaeology, skepticism, Sweden. And books and music and stuff.Continued at Aardvarchaeology.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Fieldwork in Hagebyhöga

This project is turning out to be kind of a fevered road movie of Östergötland's coolest 1st millennium sites. This morning we wrapped up in Kaga, and it's official: we have a profusion of fine metalwork and evidence of metalworkING, so this is most likely one of our sought-after princely seats And I haven't even mentioned the topography, the place name or the visible monuments there. Just incredible.

After a visit to another local magnate, the Burger King, we zipped off to Hagebyhöga parish. The start was slow here, tricky rapeseed sprouting on the ground and enormous amounts of iron in it, and morale started to flag. Then -- BAM -- we ran into a ploughed-out 10th century inhumation cemetery. Bee-yoo-tiful metalwork in obscene numbers. Tim went apeshit and surpassed himself with his machine while I ambled off and checked out the remainder of the search area. To no avail.

I decided to cut our 20 hours short at 14 here, because nice though the grave finds are, they're not really what I'm looking for and they cost a tidy sum to conserve. So we had shish kebab in Skänninge and went home to Mjölby to clean the finds.

BTW, I've found free wifi outside an apartment building a short drive from our hostel, so that's where I get my mail to the laptop. But I'm writing this on the PDA to post it to the blog via GPRS.

Time to call home and have a shower. Tomorrow another day and another classic site.

Martha: I'm doing the first metal detector surveys of a number of sites that are well known for unusual runic incriptions, great burial mounds, power-scented place names and/or early churches.

The number of princely seats is hard to establish, but judging from what we know, it seems there'll be one about every 10 kilometers. The fertile plains of Östergötland measure only about 140 by 30 kilometers.